As we walked into the Indiana Repertory Theatre, a few glowing lanterns were shining just enough to create some shadows on the snow-covered stage.
It was a scene that I have seen seven times since 2015 when friend and News-Banner colleague Chet Baumgartner and I started what has become our annual December roadtrip to Indianapolis.
We head south every December to enjoy Charles Dickens’ 1843 masterpiece “A Christmas Carol” performed on stage at the spectacular Indiana Repertory Theatre.
The snow is always the first prop that captures your attention as you walk into the theatre. The niveous landscape that covers the entire stage is actually made of thin shredded plastic from recycled milk containers.
The actors walk, run and crawl through the shiny snow during the two-hour play, especially Ebenezer Scrooge — the protagonist who at the beginning of the story has lost sight of what really matters in life but throughout the course of the story sees the errors of his ways and changes before it’s too late.
Dickens’ tale of Ebenezer Scrooge is one of my favorites, a story I look forward to reading, watching on TV and seeing on stage every December. It’s a timeless story that teaches all of us valuable lessons still today.
Every year multiple parts of the story resonate with me, but there always seems to be one part that stands out a bit more than the others.
As I was re-reading my cherished copy of the novella a couple of weeks ago, it was Scrooge’s visit with the Ghost of Christmas Past to old Fezziwig’s that I found myself thinking about. That same scene — while portrayed a bit differently on stage while still conveying the same message as Dickens’ novella — spoke the most to me this year.
A much-younger Scrooge apprenticed with old Fezziwig as Scrooge was learning to be a businessman. The Ghost takes Scrooge back to Fezziwig’s on Christmas Eve just as the clock has struck 7 o’clock and Fezziwig is telling his apprentices that it’s time to stop working and start celebrating.
“Yo ho, my boys,” Fezziwig says. “No more work tonight. It’s Christmas Eve!”
Moments later, everyone at Fezziwig’s is celebrating Christmas with music, food, dancing and fellowship as the party goes on while Scrooge enjoys the scene from his past as much as his former self enjoyed it.
As the party ends, the Ghost of Christmas Past reminds Scrooge just how fun Fezziwig’s annual Christmas Eve parties were even though it cost his mentor a few pounds of money to throw such a celebration.
“It isn’t that,” Scrooge tells the ghost. “He (Fezziwig) has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add and count ‘em up: what then? The happiness he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.”
Scrooge’s description of Fezziwig in this moment and the power old Fezziwig has to make others feel happy in his presence is a description of something that we all have within us — the potential to positively impact the people we interact with every day at home, at work, in public, online or over the phone.
Fezziwig chooses to have this joyful impact on others just as we have the same choice in our everyday encounters.
This scene is one of the first times we start to see a change in Scrooge, as he tells the Ghost that he wishes his clerk Bob Cratchit were here right now so he could say a word or two to him.
It’s a powerful moment as Scrooge starts to see the errors of his ways including how he uses his position to render those around him happy or unhappy.
As we prepare to celebrate Christmas and think about what it means, may we choose to be more like Fezziwig all year as we use our power to spread joy — a happiness that is “quite as great as if it cost a fortune.”
Merry Christmas.
jdpeeper2@hotmail.com
